Poszukując źródła. Polska, Ukraina, Europa

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the moral doubts known from the past century about the role of God in the world troubled by the war have reappeared. The following essay is an attempt to find the answers based on the teachings of Saint John Paul II. Firstly, I analyse the speech given by the pope during his visit to the German concentration camp in Auschwitz in 1979. I concentrate on his comparison between the tragedy of the Holocaust and the fact of God’s allowance for the crucifixion of Christ. I try to draw attention to some parallel aspects of these two events. The next part is dedicated to Russian society and how we should judge them in the light of the term “structural sin” discussed in the Wojtyla’s apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et paenitentia and the encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis. Finally, I assess the reaction of Polish society to the inflow of Ukrainian refugees. I finish my essay with a short analysis of two poems written by the pope.